Cynicism
by me malum
Summary: L wonders if he is romantic and/or cynical. But more often, he dreams he is merely one or the other. (Brief L/Light if you squint.)


Similarly to 'You Run, Instead', the idea of this was realised first, then pinned to a character who fit the scenario. I'm basically clearing out my hard drive (blame the rioja).

**Warnings**- extreme cynicism. British spelling.

**Disclaimer**- heh, I wish.

* * *

_He is alone, and it is largely by choice. _

_Nobody seems to understand him when he says this, and he thinks privately that their incomprehension is the very answer they struggle to fathom. It loses itself in explanation, however, so he bites his tongue, ignores the confused stares and disdains the pitying ones._

_He isn't looking for someone to fall in love with. He is looking for someone to love. So while his mother despairs of grandchildren and his father stops asking about his prospects, he puts up with the sly insinuations of homosexuality and the probing questions he diverts and doesn't hold his pillow long into the night, wishing it was another person instead._

_He cannot imagine sleeping comfortably with another person in his bed. It is an alien concept to him: that someone could invade his sanctuary, slip in between his sheets and not cause a disturbance that ensures any sleep he might get wouldn't be broken and fractured every time they move an inch._

_He has shared his bed before. He has one failed relationship behind him, because he couldn't connect emotionally to the girl who thought she'd fallen in love with him. It wasn't a gentle break up by any means, but the fact that to him, it felt more like friends drifting apart than a couple separating, justified his actions even though she hated him for the two months she bothered to keep in touch before realising that no matter what she said, he wasn't going to reply._

_He tells his friends about this relationship when they ask about his past. He embellishes the truth as well; most of them have only known him for two years or less so he says he has three ex-girlfriends and four ex-lovers. He puts random names to faces he's seen once on the bus or at the shop when they ask for details. He lies and takes snippets from books or films when they ask for _details_, because for all they call themselves friends he has little in common with them, and there is no danger of him being called out on a lie._

_They try, as all drunken friends do eventually, to set him up with workmates, new friends, sisters even. They ask _brunettes or blondes?_ in tones that state he is mad when he honestly replies he has no preference. _

_And when they ask what his ideal girl is like, then, he smiles and honestly replies, "Well, I don't know. I haven't found them yet."_

_The girls swoon and call him romantic. The guys jeer and call him a sap (and many other things besides). _

_He thinks of himself as a realist. Because he knows that although he doesn't have a type, he has lots of preferences that remove people from his possibility list. He also knows that this list never seems to have more than two people on it at a time, who are then removed in short order after another outing when they do something else he doesn't like. _

_He knows that he's probably never going to fall in love with someone if he can't bring himself to consider the prospects his father stopped asking about six months ago without wincing._

_And he decided years ago that with a mindset like his, he's never going to fall in love with anyone because of their looks, traits, or personality. It doesn't matter if they're slim or funny or sweet. _

_Real love, he thinks surely, isn't loving someone for what they are. It's loving someone _in spite_ of what they are._

_So until he finds his ideal person, one who doesn't care that he dislikes snuggling on the couch but loves having his back stroked, one who won't mind that his CDs are a jumble of everything under the sun from reggae to classical (and all in the wrong cases besides- he likes the surprise when he presses 'play') he isn't going on meaningless dates with people he can't connect to._

_He is well aware of the flaws in his reasoning- how can he connect if he doesn't give them a chance?- but deep down, he admits that he might just be the romantic the girls name him._

_Because heart and soul, he thinks that this imaginary person that he could love with has to be out there somewhere. One day, they'll meet, and it will be easy. It will be a connection that starts as friendship, true friendship that deepens into regard and then one day he'll wake up and he'll realise that he's loved this person for weeks already._

_He's never going to fall in love, and that's okay- it's not what he's looking for. Falling in love is violent passion and mental weakness, and he wants no part of it. He won't give himself away for another person to destroy so easily._

_But as he knows this to be a fact, he also knows that he is going to- just _love_ somebody, someday. He is going to find them, and he is going to love them. It will be gradual, quiet, almost non-existent to those on the outside looking in. They will be friends first, with the quiet companionship that he won't realise is anything more until that special moment- that moment when he gets _everything.

_He's going to tell them he isn't going to fall in love, and they are going to smile and say they'll hold him to that. Because they won't be looking for anything either, but it'll fall into their laps when he meets them, because that's the kind of couple they will be._

_And when he wakes up, and tells them over breakfast that he loves them, they'll smile all the wider and ask him what the hell took him so long to realise it?_

_He'll have no viable answer, but they'll smile, refill his coffee (sugar) and give him a brief, sweet kiss. And really, what more could he ask for?_

* * *

L wakes with a start.

L rarely sleeps, but when he does, he dreams. And it is perhaps more truthful to say, he rarely sleeps because when he does, he dreams.

His dreams are far crueller than any reality he sees in day to day life (his dreams involve a reality he has never been a part of, will never be a part of and cannot logically imagine, yet appears nonetheless). L cannot decide whether he is a hopeless romantic or a complete cynic, so he boxes up the ephemeral images, relegates them to the farthest corner of his considerable mind and so doesn't consider them again.

Until he dreams.

Then he dares to – dream, yes, there is no better word. He dreams that he is not isolated by his intelligence at the least and his habits and foibles at the most. He dreams that he is an ordinary person, with the ordinary family, the nine-to-five work hours and the nosy workmates that are part and parcel of a normal life.

When he hasn't slept for forty-eight hours, he wonders why he would ever imagine such a thing. Ordinary is hardly entertainment.

When he's just woken up, he briefly wonders why he'd want anything else. Then he compartmentalises because he realises none of this is conducive to L's reasoning and solving his current case(s).

If he were a romantic, he would say he forms no emotional attachment with anyone because nobody he has thus far met is worth it. He's waiting for that one special person who can match him on all levels, the hypothetical soulmate who would be able to hold an argument, fix his coffee perfectly and sleep soundlessly so they didn't wake him up at night.

As he is (he likes to believe; he compartmentalises to prove as such) a cynic, he admits that no such person exists. There is no hope that such a person exists, because L is extraordinary in his own right, and it is not pride to say thus, but fact. His intelligence is undoubted and unchallenged, and he will settle for nothing less than an equal to fall in love with. So such an individual cannot exist, because he isn't in love and doesn't know of anyone equal to himself that he could be friends and fall in love with. He likes to believe he knows of every extraordinary thing in the world, because ignorance is his worst enemy.

Then he meets Yagami Raito, and he wonders if he can't be a romantic and a cynic at the same time. Raito sleeps and appears to dream far more than L ever does, but he doesn't ever help L answer this particular question.

L wonders, frequently now, if it is possible to be a romantic and a cynic at the same time.

L dies without knowing the answer to this particular question.


End file.
